Not much room to OC?

[JayA55]

I have the ZeroTherm Nirvana 120mm cooling my Q6600 and I'm not too thrilled about the temps I'm getting right now.

I'm running at 2.7 and already avg ~46 degrees C idle.

Is this what's to be expected or is something wrong? I'm also wondering how far I should even try pushing it at these temps.

If this won't cut it as far as cooling, does anyone know if the fanless WC are any good?

thx

[screwballl]

sounds like the CPU fan may not be tightened down completely or there is too little/too much thermal compound. Under load, my E6600 sits around 40ºC at 2.4 to 2.9GHz, and this is ambient room temps around 80ºF
Ambient temps play a big part, if the room is warm then the CPU temps will be warm

granted my temps are with a dual core and not a quad...

[One4yu2c]

I'm guessing your Q6600 is a B3 stepping? If so, those temps are about what I'd expect. The same cooler on my QX6800 idles in the low 50s.

Other things to check:

- too much/little paste
- wire interfering with fan
- poor case airflow
- BIOS adjusting the CPU fan speed

[Capper]

Originally Posted by JayA55

I have the ZeroTherm Nirvana 120mm cooling my Q6600 and I'm not too thrilled about the temps I'm getting right now.

I'm running at 2.7 and already avg ~46 degrees C idle.

Is this what's to be expected or is something wrong? I'm also wondering how far I should even try pushing it at these temps.

If this won't cut it as far as cooling, does anyone know if the fanless WC are any good?

thx

Also, what are you using to record those temperatures?

[JayA55]

G0 stepping

The ambient temp according to the GPU is 51 degrees C. My motherboard stays at around 35-40 degrees. So everything else is staying relatively cool.

I have 120mm front/rear fans pushing 54 CFM max. Once I modify my case I'll be adding a 140mm fan to the side as well.

I'm going to check the fan in a bit, make sure everything is on tight and it has room to breathe.

thx

edit:

Capper, this is with the Nforce system tools I downloaded.

[Parker]

Try using CoreTemp to monitor your CPU temps.

Coretemp gives the best temp readings.

[gvblake22]

RealTemp has been a recent favorite too, you might want to try that as well.

[JayA55]

Before popping the case open I decided to check my Bios. The Bios is reading the chip at 57 degrees C, so something is definitely not right here.

Could it be anything with my settings?

Running linked @ 1200 FSB
9X
CPU Spread Spectrum Off
HT Spread Spectrum was auto (I just disabled that now)
PCIe Spread Spectrum Off
PCIe Spread Spectrum Auto
SATA Spread Spectrum Off


CPU Core Voltage 1.39 (auto)

Limit CPUID MaxVal Off
Intel SpeedStep Off
CPU Thermal Control Off
C1E Off
Execute Disable Bit On
Virtualization Technology On


Just download coretemp (thx)
Here's the result from that:




Reading about the same temps there 46

On another note, should I leave my voltages on auto when OC? My goal here is to run 3.6/1600 on air. Thing is with these temps right now that's a big concern, plus I have not been able to post a 3.0 yet.

[gvblake22]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the stock voltage supposed to be like 1.25V for the G0 stepping Q6600? Try setting the voltage to the value you want in the BIOS rather than just Auto, that way you can see if the voltage is high or low. You may be giving it more voltage than it needs, try setting it to like 1.3V and see what CPU-Z says.